


switchblade girls and pistol boys

by dearestpersephone



Series: let the gods speak softly of us [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Mob, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6773827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearestpersephone/pseuds/dearestpersephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're a mess of souls in a house, seven souls in seven bodies with seven minds all together. It’s almost poetic; the switchblade girls and pistol boys living, loving, in this apartment of theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhimperSoldier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhimperSoldier/gifts), [thegayestshadowhunter (BuckysButt)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckysButt/gifts).



> all hail whimpersoldier. all hail thegayestshadowhunter.
> 
> all hail Shadowhunters Mob AU fics.

She’s a switchblade girl,

born for street wars.

Knife fights and drive bys

Swiss Army in her palm and bullets in her back pockets.

 

He’s a pistol boy,

pumping lead into the dark.

Bloody knuckles and bandaged wrists,

Bat in hand and a smile on his face.

 

It's a silent war,

Battlefields are back alleys,

Blood runs down gutters into storm drains.

Degenerates, the cityfolk whisper,

Criminals, the police whisper,

Mustang kids, they whisper,

Mustang kids with storm cloud bruises.

 

_\- AW // we're sharp steel blades and cool copper casings_


	2. Chapter 2

It’s Friday night. Clary disappeared some hours earlier, paint cans in one hand and Jace in the other, his treasured bat resting against tattooed shoulders. Whether she brought Jace as a model for whatever mural she planned to tag a wall with or for him to fuck her in some deserted alleyway remained to be seen. (Both, of course. Jace liked to paint Clary’s body, be it with his bloody knuckles after a round in the rings or with her own paints when she went out to spray the billboards on the East Side.)

Alec is asleep, head in Magnus’ lap, fingers curled around the fabric of his boyfriend’s pant leg. Magnus takes a drag, puffing smoke into the quiet of the apartment. Friday nights are quiet nights, when Clary goes to paint and Jace goes with her, when Izzy pulls Simon and Raphael to the underground clubs, when Magnus and Alec are alone in the apartment.

They're a mess of souls in a house, seven souls in seven bodies with seven minds all together. It’s almost poetic; the switchblade girls and pistol boys living, loving, in this apartment of theirs.

Clary and Jace are back after the sun goes down and the stars came out, Isabelle and Simon and Raphael are high and drunk, it's a deadly combination but they're all dead anyway.

It takes a certain kind of person to live the life they do, but honestly, it takes a certain kind of person to live the life they each left. The heir and the disgraceful spares, the only daughter of an artist and her best friend, the two mysteries who wormed their way in and no one really knows how, they just came and never really left. They’re all dead and deadly, and life and no life.

Magnus watches them as they stumble through the door, watches as Clary whispers in Jace’s ear, paint across her hands and across her face and a new shade crusted on the soles of her Converse. Magnus eyes it, he keeps a clean house, or tries to, it's hard in a 4 bedroom apartment that houses 7 teenaged criminals.

It was Magnus’ apartment first, his loft the group migrated to after they all fell in together. A kitchen that's never full, a living room full of ratty couches and random cushions lifted from assorted residences during assorted break-ins. Bedrooms for never-sleeping, bathrooms filled with makeup, Izzy’s foundations, Magnus’ eyeliner, the bleach Jace uses when his hair starts to turn to brown for his liking (he’s more of golden than a dishwater blonde he tells himself, makes him feel more like a king.) When Izzy first met Clary, she had doubts that the red of Clary’s hair, the red, red like blood was natural. (She’s seen the carpet- it's really that color.)

The dining room isn't a dining room it's a war room, guns and knives and Alec’s precious archery set from his old life. There's maps of the city, photos of people to trust and people not to, and there's Polaroids stuck to the walls, courtesy of Clary who likes to snap them during the drive-bys, Alec and Magnus and their matching weapons, Izzy as she stands in the backseat of the Dodge, wind rushing in her hair. Jace’s tattoos, Alec’s eyes, Clary’s hair, Izzy’s lips, Magnus’ neck, it's all there captured as a perfect moment in time.

Theres one that sits on the old fridge, one they were going to send to Luke down at the station but liked too much. It's 6 of them in front of one of Clary’s murals eight blocks down and twelve over. Alec’s carrying Isabelle on his back and has his arm around Magnus. Simon and Jace are all holding Clary as she makes a heart towards the camera. Raphael took the photo, and Clary made a second for him in thanks.

Clary’s favourite is one of Alec, the arch of his neck covered in bloody kisses in the shape of Magnus’ lips. He and Jace had gone a round for fun, and Magnus had wiped at the blood across his lips before wiping it across Alec. She hung it on the fridge, and the ratty old machine became a photo album. (In the aftermath of the robbery they’d done after that photo was taken, Magnus'd pressed a purple pendant into Clary’s palm. _In thanks_ , he’d whispered, and Clary made sure to bring the camera to every outing after.)

Friday nights are quiet nights, but Saturday is when the real party starts. Jace leaves in the early hours, the rings don’t sleep and the ringmasters don’t wait. Clary leaves after him, sometimes she takes Jace’s bat and she’s off to the art stores (and definitely not to buy anything), other times she takes her sketchbook down to the parlour and comes back with a limb wrapped in saran wrap, a new doodle becoming permanent (Izzy loves it when Clary gets a new tattoo, it's a new pattern to trace with kisses.) Alec and Magnus run the warehouse, nothing gets into their underground without passing through the doors, passing under their eyes. They watch the guns come in, watch the drugs and make sure it's all clean, as clean as it gets when you run the downworld.

They’re always running from Luke’s colleagues, the Wolf Pack, they laugh to each other on the ratty ass couch in the evenings after Luke thinks he gets close before he realises he’s never been farther.

Like dogs, Izzy laughs, always following his lead on everything. Dumb dogs, Clary sighs, dumb dogs who don’t know any better.

Dogs are the best trackers, Alec warns, and Magnus just kisses up his neck, saying that dogs can't track if there is no trail.

The dogs are what make it fun, Jace grins, he’s on the floor in front of Clary who has her fingers in his hair, always ten steps behind but thinking they're closer.

They’re seven souls in seven bodies with seven minds. They’re all dead and deadly, and life and no life. Clary, Jace, Alec, Izzy, Magnus, Simon and Raphael, seven mustang kids with storm cloud bruises.

**Author's Note:**

> also with a playlist! 
> 
> 8tracks.com/aglionbyboys/switchblade-girls-and-pistol-boys


End file.
